Abstract
The National Children's Study Cognitive Health Domain Team developed detailed plans for assessing cognition longitudinally from infancy to early adulthood. These plans identify high-priority aspects of cognition that can be measured efficiently and effectively, and we believe they can serve as a model for future large-scale longitudinal research. For infancy and toddlerhood, we proposed several paradigms that collectively allowed us to assess six broad cognitive constructs: (1) executive function skills, (2) episodic memory, (3) language, (4) processing speed, (5) spatial and numerical processing, and (6) social cognition. In some cases, different trial sequences within a paradigm allow for the simultaneous assessment of multiple cognitive skills (e.g., executive function skills and processing speed). We define each construct, summarize its significance for understanding developmental outcomes, discuss the feasibility of its assessment throughout development, and present our plan for measuring specific skills at different ages. Given the need for well-validated, direct behavioral measures of cognition that can be used in large-scale longitudinal studies, especially from birth to age 3 years, we also initiated three projects focused on the development of new measures.
Highlights
The United States National Children’s Study (NCS), authorized by the Children’s Health Act of 2000, was designed to examine environmental influences on health and development
We describe three ongoing projects, launched as part of the NCS, that are designed to create new, well-validated, direct behavioral measures of cognition that can be used in future large-scale longitudinal studies, especially from birth to age 3 years
There was a recognized need for new well-validated and standardized direct behavioral measures of cognition that can be used in large-scale longitudinal studies, especially from birth to age 3 years
Summary
The United States National Children’s Study (NCS), authorized by the Children’s Health Act of 2000, was designed to examine environmental influences on health and development. We proposed to assess the following broad cognitive constructs in this paradigm-based way: [1] executive function skills, [2] episodic memory (learning and recall), [3] language, [4] processing speed, [5] spatial and numerical processing, and [6] social cognition These six types of cognitive skill can be measured straightforwardly starting in infancy, and early individual differences in these skills predict important developmental outcomes, including educational achievement and social functioning. Measures of mental rotation and non-verbal number estimation based on preferential looking exist for infants and are predictive of spatial and numerical performance on paper-and-pencil tasks at preschool age [93, 107] In infancy, these tasks are modeled on change detection paradigms, in which two dynamic displays (left and right) vary in the amount of variability. A subsequent step is to create national norms for the new measures using a stratified representative sample
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